EURO fixtures to be confirmed

Finishing touches are being put to the UEFA EURO 2008™ qualifying programme although two of the seven groups may require a UEFA draw to firm up their fixtures.

Draw date
So far five of the seven pools, featuring all of UEFA's 52 member associations, have reached an accord over match schedules but the remaining two groups have until Monday to agree their match plan. If the groups affected, B and E, fail to do so, a straight draw will be staged by European football's governing body at its Nyon headquarters on Thursday afternoon.

No seedings
It would be an open draw with no seedings. Each nation would be assigned a random letter and that letter would then apply to a preordained match schedule, such as A plays D, E plays C. Although all the other groups have completed the process, the teams in Group C had to carry out their own draw to settle their schedule, with just a few matters regarding fixture dates to be confirmed.

Paris summit
Group B featuring France, Italy, Ukraine, Scotland, Lithuania, Georgia and the Faroe Islands failed to come to full agreement in the French capital two weeks ago. The Scottish Football Association said: "At the planning meeting in Paris, six of the seven countries in Group B agreed a full fixture schedule. However, Ukraine was unable to do so, and the Ukrainian FA has proposed changes to the schedule."

Zagreb talks
The other pool that failed to finalise its programme was Group E – England, Croatia, Russia, Israel, Estonia, F.Y.R. Macedonia and Andorra - after the seven countries met in Zagreb yesterday. Croatian Football Federation secretary general Zorislav Srebrić said: "We are sorry that an agreement has not been reached despite our efforts." David Davies of the Football Association added: "We were near an agreement but did not succeed. We have been convinced for some time that it will be increasingly difficult to arrange fixtures in large groups."